What leaves a blood centre is usually not whole blood but a component separated from it, and each component has its own temperature. The Turkish Ministry of Health's National Guide for the Preparation, Use and Quality Assurance of Blood and Blood Components (2016) stores components in three regimes: +2 to +6 °C, +20 to +24 °C and below 0 °C.
| Component | Storage | Shelf life | In transport |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red cell concentrate | +2 to +6 °C | 42 days with CPD and SAG-M, 35 days with CPDA-1 | Equipment holding +2 to +6 °C, no more than 10 °C at the end of a 24-hour journey |
| Platelet concentrate | +20 to +24 °C, on an agitator | Up to 5 days | Up to 24 hours without agitation |
| Fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate | 3 months at -18 to -25 °C, 36 months below -25 °C | As close to storage temperature as possible |
Platelets and leucocytes lose viability quickly at 4 °C, so platelets never go into a refrigerator. Agitation matters too, because it keeps oxygen reaching the cells: the guide allows agitation to be interrupted at most three times, for no more than 30 hours in total, over the 5-day storage period.
Freezing red cells, thawing plasma. Cooling elements used in transport must not be in close contact with the bags, because red cells tolerate neither freezing nor warming. On delivery, a thermometer is placed between two bags and read after five minutes; red cells must not have dropped below 1 °C or risen above 10 °C. Plasma is thawed at 37 °C by a validated method, used immediately or within 24 hours if kept at +4 °C, and never refrozen.
The three regimes cannot be held in one box at the same time, so the transport container is chosen for the component and its label states which component it was qualified for. The container's temperature band and duration are covered in how cold a blood transport bag should be.